Beast24 wrote:Wuzzy i dont think the eggs are added yet and as i heard they are not craftable they will be dropped by the little goblin mobs

Indeed, both the eggs and keys are still in beta testing, and waiting to be deployed due to the feature freeze this past week. With any luck, I'll have time to push those updates before next weekend.

twoelk wrote:does that nice display take local biome values into account? it sure does look cool

The weather simulator does not account for biomes because JT2 is an all-stone world. Currently, the air temperature, wind speed, etc. are uniform throughout the map, which greatly simplifies the necessary calculations.

Wuzzy wrote:Nice! But why are there such arcane symbols like “F” and “mph”

It is now possible to switch between metric and imperial units using the /weather chat command. I still plan to introduce a player preferences panel, so that option (and several others) can be included there. When I first rolled out the weather simulator, it was just a proof-of-concept. So that is why I didn't include unit conversions at the time.

parasite wrote:Sorcerykid, I am curious do you plan something to make different weather and temperature conditions affect players somehow, or only have a decorative functions?

Yes, integrating the weather simulator with the game mechanics is actually my long term goal. Eventually players will incur damage during temperature extremes, particularly if wind chill or heat index are a factor, unless they are indoors or underground (or wearing armour). Strong winds will likely hinder walking and induce fatigue as well.

Beast24 wrote:Sorcery kid i have noticed that Dark_Viper (one of his many accouts) has been cursing up a storm in chat at night me and yik have asked him to multiple times.

Thanks for the heads up. Several players notified me of these concerns, so it has was promptly dealt with. Sorry for the hassle.

sorcerykid wrote:Indeed, both the eggs and keys are still in beta testing, and waiting to be deployed due to the feature freeze this past week. With any luck, I'll have time to push those updates before next weekend.

Can't wait for these, there is a locked chest hovering over my cotton field that just has to go!

sorcerykid wrote:Yes, integrating the weather simulator with the game mechanics is actually my long term goal. Eventually players will incur damage during temperature extremes, particularly if wind chill or heat index are a factor, unless they are indoors or underground (or wearing armour). Strong winds will likely hinder walking and induce fatigue as well.

I guess I should probably build a house at some point so. I'll probably just put a roof on my greenhouse or start wearing armour.

It's time to celebrate our past accomplishments and toast to exciting new opportunities!

We'll be ringing in the new year with a balloon drop and fireworks display at 0000 UTC (7pm Eastern) and again at Midnight Eastern. Join us in the courtyard at Lag Memorial Plaza for a new year's eve party with all your friends from JT2. I'll be handing out party horns, so when the midnight hour strikes, we can make a LOT of noise ;D

You can also craft your own party horn and confetti with these two simple recipes!

Party Horn

Confetti

The countdown clock is set and the walls of Castle Nemo are lined with LED lights in preparation for 2018. See you tonight!

KatzEyez wrote:I have been trying for 2 days to log in and cannot get past "Media... 67%". Not sure what's going on, but really frustrated cuz I like the server and would love to play.

Same thing happened to me this morning but now it's fine.

This is happening to me too. I cleared ˜/.minetest/cache/media and tried again, it took 4 minutes for the media content to get as far as the png file dfe982f65fd31cac1fdd61e3f135df78a8c7bc74 then loading stalled.

So I cleared the media cache and tried again, pretty much the same story, stalled after 3 minutes but this time on a different file.

Issue is only on my 64 bit Ubuntu machine, my 32 bit machine is fine. This was between around 13:30 UTC and 14:15 UTC.

Edit: Both machines are running unmodified clients and are using the same wifi connection. Tried logging on via a VPN still no joy. Don't know if any of this is in anyway useful, I'm not a server guy :(

I think I tracked down the cause. It seems I removed a media file while the server was still running. I will restart the server, so the media is re-indexed. I guess that explains why there have been so few players the past 24 hours. Sorry about that.

SantaClaus has slipped back into the snowy abyss of the North Pole, but not before delivering hundreds of gifts to all the good little boys and girls on JT2. Numerous homes were adorned with stockings. Some were placed near warm fireplaces, others on the walls of bedrooms and workshops. Many players were eagerly anticipating Santa's arrival, yet still sound asleep on Christmas morning. Here are just a few highlights along Santa's journey through the land of JT2.

Afterwards, SantaClaus dropped off a sleigh-load of Christmas presents for players near spawn -- almost 60 in total, lining both sides of Main Street. A few still have yet to be claimed, so be sure to check whether you have a box with your name on it! ;D

Two larger-than-life Christmas trees were also spotted along Santa's delivery route. Both were covered by an assortment of traditional and modern decorations. Thanks to Arisha_L (left) and iisu (right) for sharing their unique artistic vision of these holiday icons!

Just before Santa's departure, several players lined up for a photoshoot in the Great Hall alongside the Ice Monster and Unflying Reindeer. And yes, even the Joker made a cameo appearance for the occasion atop our Christmas tree . :P

Nemo, I've been thinking about the problem you had with Lua's math.random() function.Assuming it's not returning completely deranged values that show a preference for divisibility by certain numbers then this function should give decent results. You may have to change the value 100000000000000 depending on how many decimal places your copy of Lua returns, if it's to big you will always get 0. If that happens just lop off zero's until it starts to work properly.

Of course this comes with the ever so slight caveat that I've only been able to test it against a working math.random()!

random() random(n) and random(n,u) are all implemented, random(n,u) differs from math.random(n,u) as mentioned in the code comments.

I've been meaning to dip my toe into Lua for a while, this was a nice little problem to start with.

It was great to see so many familiar faces on new years eve. We partied till the break of dawn, and then some! In fact, I'm still recovering from all the excitement -- and yes, that includes my ears :P

The courtyard and great hall of Castle Nemo were decked out in hundreds of balloons and confetti in addition to LED lights to usher in the new year. We like to celebrate in style! The balloons, confetti, and LED lights will all be released as a mod at some point.

The Inner Ward

The Gatehouse

The Great Hall

At the stroke of midnight, there was a balloon drop and a light show followed by a colorful fireworks display directly above Castle Nemo!

The biggest spectacle of all, however, was undoubtedly the party horns. Several players (all of whom shall remain nameless lol) took it to the extreme. After about 30 minutes of unruly noisemaking, my ears were ringing. Suffice it to say, the party horns were clearly a success -- just not in the way I anticipated! I particularly love CAMc's remark: "I already have tinnitus. You can't hurt me." xD

I certainly had blast on NYE, and I hope you did as well. Best wishes to all of our players in 2018!

I added 18 new doors to the server last week. They encompass a wide variety of different building styles, so you are no longer restricted to the four basic (and uber-boring) steel, wood, and glass doors that come shipped with the default game.

I designed all of the textures below for the JT2 server, with the exception of the Cottage Exterior Door and the Japanese Door which I borrowed from xdecor. I will probably release these doors as a mod at some point.

I truly believe that doors are one of the most essential but often overlooked elements of good architectural design. They set the tone and character of both a living and working space. Have the wrong style of door can make or break the underlying visual aesthetic of any building, which is why I accounted for several possible uses. Enjoy!

Sorcerykid`s short holiday at MustTest server has resulted in something wonderful. I do not think there was such event on the minetest servers yet. Winter has come to this server for good! The snow is falling heavily, sometimes it is snow with rain, but the temperature is almost always negative (below zero - in the terms of the Celsius scale).

And what is more important, the sea freezes! I stopped on a stone beach and watched as more and more ice appeared on the water. I have the impression that in a few minutes there will be no flowable water at all on the surface of the sea and it will be one big ice rink:

Night is great time as mobs show up. Hunt them and you will collect snow. I do not know if there is any other possibility to get some snow at jt2. Snow looks nice just as dirt on stones!

Thanks for this interactive and wonderful winter Sorcerykid! And for great chrismass and new year events!

Sorcerykid`s short holiday at MustTest server has resulted in something wonderful. I do not think there was such event on the minetest servers yet. Winter has come to this server for good! The snow is falling heavily, sometimes it is snow with rain, but the temperature is almost always negative (below zero - in the terms of the Celsius scale).

And what is more important, the sea freezes! I stopped on a stone beach and watched as more and more ice appeared on the water. I have the impression that in a few minutes there will be no flowable water at all on the surface of the sea and it will be one big ice rink:

Night is great time as mobs show up. Hunt them and you will collect snow. I do not know if there is any other possibility to get some snow at jt2. Snow looks nice just as dirt on stones!

Thanks for this interactive and wonderful winter Sorcerykid! And for great chrismass and new year events!

NOOOOO! My hard-earned wealth is slightly less valuable now! :D

I noticed this ice is just default:ice. I assume you want it all to melt when spring comes. Do you have a way to distinguish frozen water from ice placed by players so that if one builds something with ice it doesn't get griefed as the temperature rises?

iisu wrote:I noticed this ice is just default:ice. I assume you want it all to melt when spring comes.

I guess the summer will be so hot that all water in seas will evaporate!;)

iisu wrote:Do you have a way to distinguish frozen water from ice placed by players so that if one builds something with ice it doesn't get griefed as the temperature rises?

I do not know if such code which could distinguish one from another is implemented, but it seems not (or it does not work correctly). But also there is no need for that. If there is hot, ice and snow should melt, that is all! Protection should not keep ice frozen in summer just like that. Or at least we will have some machine that allow to keep frozen area even in summer. Today, all my snow which I put a few days ago on a stone hill started to melt down. The released water flooded area! I made a screenshot during that event. I guess torches standing nearby had nothing to do with it as all the snow (more >30 blocks) was gone soon! All snow, not just a few blocks near some torch. Ice left alone, but not for long time! Soon ice blocks also started to melt down, changing into water source. I decided to digg all left ice to keep some in inventory as it seems it will not stay forever as decorative on the ground :D

I checked the /weather and was 0 in metrics units, but maybe it was above 0 when it started to melt - I was not there when it started, didnt know what is happening so did not checked then.

SaKeL wrote:wow that's some pretty cool looking doors! can i have them? :)

Thanks, I still need to fine tune the textures a bit (me being a perfectionist). The dungeon gates are a bit too dark for my tastes. And the barn doors could use some more definition along the edges). But hopefully soon I will release them all as part of a mod.

Btw, I have several of the new doors on display at spawn, so players can preview them before expending materials on crafting. I must say, even I'm finding them to be a vast improvement over the defaults :)

parasite wrote:And what is more important, the sea freezes! I stopped on a stone beach and watched as more and more ice appeared on the water. I have the impression that in a few minutes there will be no flowable water at all on the surface of the sea and it will be one big ice rink:

Your impressions are correct. Ice will naturally form only below freezing. With warmer temperatures, it will then melt. The snowfall mod is still fairly experimental, but at least it offers a better sense of immersion than vast expanses of barren stone and stagnant water. Nonetheless, I'll take everyone's concerns into account in any forthcoming updates.

iisu wrote:I noticed this ice is just default:ice. I assume you want it all to melt when spring comes. Do you have a way to distinguish frozen water from ice placed by players so that if one builds something with ice it doesn't get griefed as the temperature rises?

Rest assured, it's entirely possible to distinguish between ice that is placed by the user and ice that is formed via natural processes. In fact, that was one of my first considerations before the initial roll-out. However, I had only included such checks in the snow accumulation routines, but seemingly discounted builds consisting of ice.

Since that was my oversight, I will be using WorldEdit to correct the damage where I find it. In the meantime, I've limited the formation of ice to 200 meters around spawn to prevent any further griefing.

parasite wrote:I do not know if such code which could distinguish one from another is implemented, but it seems not (or it does not work correctly). But also there is no need for that. If there is hot, ice and snow should melt, that is all! Protection should not keep ice frozen in summer just like that. Or at least we will have some machine that allow to keep frozen area even in summer. Today, all my snow which I put a few days ago on a stone hill started to melt down.

I debated whether or not precipitation should honor protection. However, I felt that imposing such limitations would take away from the sense of immersion as you suggested. Ultimately, I decided that precipitation should only impact surfaces in direct sunlight (not covered and not in shadows). I believed that would offer a degree of confidence about what areas are vulnerable, while not sacrificing too much realism.

Incidentally, snow currently only melts around spawn, so it shouldn't impact any decorated terrain outside of the city.

This past weekend I fixed the dynamic map on the Website and included realtime weather status as promised.

Since the major holidays are past, I also took the opportunity to revamp the splash screen. All the vital stats are now presented in an easy-to digest format immediately after login.

And, just for fun I designed an XTerm-style console that displays various diagnostic messages after players connect to the server. It started out as just a proof of concept, but quickly evolved into a fully-fledged mod with its own API. Okay, I'm an uber geek :)

I have a couple more cool features in the works, and they should be ready to go live later this week. I'll keep you posted!

End of week updates! The past several days I've been hard at work coding a new mod called Polygraph that allows for extensible, object-oriented data visualization using Minetest formspecs.

I've already integrated Polygraph into the weather simulator, for realtime logging and analysis of weather trends. Using the /log chat command, you can now review the charts for temperature, wind chill, wind speed, and precipitation. There are also options to switch between imperial vs. metric units and relative time vs. elapsed time (i.e. the server uptime, as shown below the world clock).

As a bonus, I also included a system activity monitor which can be accessed via the new /ps chat command. Currently it only charts the server's avg_lag, but I plan to include player logins as well. Of course the screencap below is only a test with pseudo-random input data, since the avg_lag almost never exceeds 0.2s.

I've still got some additional changes in the pipe for this weekend, so stay tuned for the upcoming announcements :)

talamh wrote:Nemo, I've been thinking about the problem you had with Lua's math.random() function.Assuming it's not returning completely deranged values that show a preference for divisibility by certain numbers then this function should give decent results.

Thanks for the help! I just happened to stumble across two very interesting pages on the Developer Wiki yesterday. Believe it or not, Minetest already has its own random number generators, one of which is quite powerful. So between the routine you suggested and these obscure API calls, I've got a few different options I can try now :)

Minor issue, I can't see what I am holding in my hand. I can see it briefly when I log on but then it no longer displays. Logged on using 2 laptops and an Android phone and all have the same problem.

Two other players have reported this same phenomenon. Given the symptoms, I suspect that it's a bug in either the wield3d mod or the 3d armor mod, but I'm still investigating. I appreciate the heads up.